I have to keep reminding myself that I'm lucky to be here. When I walk the streets of my Brooklyn neighborhood, I'm always catching my breath as I cross paths with beautiful, secret, fleeting things in the midst of the grit. There is nowhere like New York. This incredible city is my home.
But on some weekends, I drive the familiar road back to a small town upstate.
A place where the nighttime air smells sweet, the sky is unobscured, and fat junebugs fly out of the verdant dark to cling to our window screens. There are stars and night songs and small frogs in the trees.
And there are beautiful, secret things here, too.
I can't stay, I know. Because this is not New York, and New York is home, and only a failure would flee the city just to spend her Sunday afternoons lying prostrate in a patch of clover.
But sometimes -- as I cross the city limits, roll through the toll plaza at the Triborough Bridge, and catch first sight of the concrete skyline -- a lump rises in my throat and I have to fight the urge to turn around. To go back where I came from. To get one more look at the stars, the ones that New York scrubs into oblivion with its persistent nighttime glow.
No matter how I love this gritty, noisy, vibrant place, I'm afraid my heart will always be back there in the grass.
6 comments:
Oooh. I know that feeling very well. Except your Brooklyn is my hometown, and your upstate is the city on Lake Superior where I spent my 20s.
People who dismiss the importance of Sense of Place are so so wrong. It can make a heart sick to be caught between two places.
Ok:
A) Choosing to slow your life down (lying prostrate in the clover) does not make you a failure. It makes you someone who enjoys watching the clouds every now and again.
B) Spiders are not beautiful. Webs can be, but spiders a creeptastic.
What a lovely change from the norm, Kat. I really enjoyed this post.
I grew up in a small town where the stars were brilliant, and I thought that was normal. Then I moved away and now I can't seem to find one single square inch of sky that looks as beautiful as it did back home. And that makes me so very sad.
This feeling is my whole life: the city vs. country ache. I'm sure you all know the reasons for and against both.
I doubt there is a remedy. If you find it, let me know. I'd mortgage my whole life for an answer.
beautiful, secret things = pictures taken by 17-Year-Old [who] Thinks She's Getting Into Photography?
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/17_year_old_thinks_shes
it seems that faking insight & emotional depth is not your strongest suit.
Hey "Anonymous", it's easy to be hateful when hiding behind a mask of anonymity. Why don't you grow a pair and leave your comment as a real person?
Mean people suck, especially those who are cowards.
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